Huge Haul- Mother lode? 0

[Timely]

This week I went to one of those Jewelry Exchange places where they buy & sell jewelry, precious metals, bullion & coins. I was only there for literally a minute when an old lady in her 70's walks up to a person behind the counter & hands him a list.

I'm about 20 feet away but I hear her say, "I have all these coins I want to get rid of. Here's a list. Call me with your offer.  It would be great if you would just take them all!"

The guy says, "Well, where are the coins? In your car?"

"Oh God no." she exclaims! It would take many car loads to bring them all here.

She then walks out.

The guy with the list shows it to another guy behind the counter.  That guy says to the first, "You know we have to look at these coins before we can make an offer." They both then walk into the back where no doubt the real money-man sits.

This all happened within 2 minutes tops.  Part of me wanted to follow the lady out & talk with her, but I felt weird doing that.  I wish I knew what was on that list!

 

Does this happen often?

[Henri Charriere]

I believe a lot more than people realize -- or for those who've done so, care to admit.  🐓 

[Conder101]

Too often.  Collector dies or divorces, spouse gets the coins but has no knowledge about them and just wants them gone and have to the cash.  Often gets taken to the cleaners selling better pieces for melt.

[MarkFeld]

The coins could easily be 90% silver, pocket change, counterfeits, low value or some combination thereof. From my experience - and I’m generalizing, here - the larger the “collection”, the less valuable/more common the coins tend to be.

Edited January 12, 2022 by MarkFeld

[RWB]

Agree with Mark. Larger quantity = lower quality + lower value. There are exceptions - but rare.

[Mohawk]

On 1/12/2022 at 5:17 PM, MarkFeld said:

The coins could easily be 90% silver, pocket change, counterfeits, low value or some combination thereof. From my experience - and I’m generalizing, here - the larger the “collection”, the less valuable/more common the coins tend to be.

I agree with Mark and Roger.  From my time at the coin shop, I'd say it's true.....the larger the accumulation, the less valuable it is.  Pretty much every large accumulation presented to us in a similar manner at the shop I worked at was typically a bunch of junk silver and low grade, common date coins.  We did have large collections that were actually good, valuable stuff come in as well, but typically the people who had those knew that they had something good.  That's how it went at the shop.....when people actually had good stuff, they typically knew that they did, and many who assumed that their accumulation was good had to learn the hard way that it wasn't.

[Henri Charriere]

On 1/12/2022 at 11:05 AM, Timely said:

Does this happen often?

[Fleeting thought... do you recall when I opined on a member's thread that I could not grade a coin without knowing who the owner was? 🤔  Well, I believe that dynamic is an innate prejudice with buyers. If a dowager alights from her chauffeur-driven RR Silver Ghost with a few heirloom coins, jut in her strut, and a commanding bearing, how will she make out as compared with a hobo or rag- picker in raggedy clothes, with the very same cache?  C'est la vie!] 🐓 

[DWLange]

When a grande dame named Mrs. Norweb visited New Netherlands Coins in the 1950s, her fate was to sit upon the Milky Way bar that Walter Breen had carelessly left on a chair. So related John Jay Ford many years ago, though the story could have been apocryphal.

[RWB]

I suggest that if Emily May Norweb sat on Wally's carelessly placed candy bar, Wally would not have survived the day.

[thebeav]

In general, it was usually a confusing experience when someone would bring you a coin 'list' for appraisal. Many times the person was not familiar with mintmarks. You would see an 1893 silver dollar listed in the dollar section. How do you appraise that ?

It was also usually the case that there were many copies of this list made. So, you not only had an impossible task of accurately appraising the deal, you were competing with every dealer in the phone book. There was always the guy that would offer 'moon' money on the deal, just to get the owner to bring it in to the shop. Then he would back-track and explain and buy the deal for 25 percent of what he originally offered.

Of course the exception was the occasional list of mint and proof sets, stuff you didn't need to see.......whoopie...... 

[GoldFinger1969]

On 1/13/2022 at 4:45 PM, DWLange said:

When a grande dame named Mrs. Norweb visited New Netherlands Coins in the 1950s, her fate was to sit upon the Milky Way bar that Walter Breen had carelessly left on a chair. So related John Jay Ford many years ago, though the story could have been apocryphal.

She could afford the dry cleaning........